Work Text:
The first time Jack kisses Ianto, it isn’t really a kiss despite what it looks like. Jack’s resurrected, back from the dead once more, reset to factory settings. This doesn’t surprise him anymore – he’s counting on this curse to save the others.
The endless energy that’s dragged him back to life for over a hundred and fifty years is still racing through his body, much like the electric current that had killed him only a few moments ago. Which is more painful, he doesn’t know. It burns. It burns so much. He just wants to curl up and die.
But he can’t.
The Hub is mostly quiet and the Cyberman is gone for now. Jack can only hope that the others are okay. He can still hear the pistons and the fall of heavy feet as the Cyberman marches through his base, presumably still searching for Owen and Gwen. Toshiko has escaped and is safely out of harm’s way for now.
Jack knows where Ianto is. His body is slumped next to him, completely still. He’s laying at an awkward angle with his neck bent and one arm askew at the edge of the tidal pool that surrounds the Rift Manipulator. Luckily, it’s his legs that are half-submerged in the shallow water, rather than his head.
There’s little Jack can do without attracting the attention of the Cyberman, but he has to try. He quietly scrambles down the slight incline to Ianto and pulls his heavy body up into his arms. Ianto’s eyes are closed, and his lips are parted. His face is slack and unresponsive. There are no outward injuries except for a cut high on his cheekbone, but Jack can’t feel a pulse. He’s a dead weight in Jack’s arms.
It’s unlikely that Ianto survived the impact having been thrown with considerable force across the Hub by the half-converted carcass of the woman he once knew as Lisa Hallett. Lisa Hallett is dead. And so is Ianto.
It’s been maybe five minutes since his death, but in that time, Jack’s died twice in quick succession. His brain’s both overloaded and foggy at the same time. It’s difficult to get things straight, but he knows what he has to do.
He’s done this a few times before. The first time he did it, he’d revived in a shell crater with the body of the young privet he’d been seeing in secret draped over him. There’d been no obvious injuries – it had been hard to tell under all the mud and blood – but that didn’t matter. Gas could kill, quickly and silently. Thousands of men drowned in those long years, fluid building up in their lungs, despite the lack of clean water.
Far too many young men lost their lives out there, but at least Jack could bring his body back. His lover had believed that he’d be home by Christmas. Those were the last words he said to his mum before he left, promising her he’d be all right. The least Jack could do was send him home for Christmas, all be it in a box with the Union Flag draped over it.
Yet before he started his perilous journey back across no man’s land, he’d let himself kiss him one last time. He poured everything into the kiss, wishing with all his might that he’d been able to save him, that he’d be one of the lucky ones to today, that he’d be the one to survive the whole bloody war. His lover, a young man far too brave and stupid (a curse that inflicted far too many people of his age and would likely see them killed out here before they had the chance to outgrow it) had come back to life in his arms, still covered in mud and blood, yet alive. Jack’s kiss had healed him from death. After the firing had stopped, they made their way back to the trench where they could safely celebrate the miracle. But sadly, like so many others in those long years, his new life had been a short reprieve rather than a full pardon. He’d died on that same battlefield barely three months later. His body had never been recovered.
But that was then, and this is now.
Jack kisses Ianto – the traitor who’s too young and stupid in love to know what he’s risking despite surviving the carnage at Torchwood Tower – back to life. He forces the excess energy that’s still surging through his own body into the limp form cradled in his arms. It won’t save him forever, but it’ll give him time. Time to grow up, time to learn, and time to live and love again. The Cybermen won’t take anyone else from him. Jack won’t have anyone under his command die tonight.
With one hand, he gently supports Ianto’s head, the other he uses to cup Ianto’s strong jaw, thumb pressed into his pulse point so he can feel the moment Ianto’s heart restarts. Despite the fact Jack’s saving his life, he doubts Ianto will view it like that. Ten minutes ago he’d had Ianto on his knees in front of the team with a cocked gun pointing at his head and now he’s kissing him.
Jack doesn’t have the luxury of time to dwell on the subject. This isn’t really a kiss, even though his lips are on Ianto’s (soft and pliant and cool and absolutely nothing like what he’d been imagining ever since Ianto quite literally fell out of the sky and into his arms) and Jack’s tongue is in his mouth just a bit (because this is a kiss but not quite that kind of kiss) and for all intents and purposes, one party of this not-a-kiss is definitely kissing the other. But the other is unresponsive and unable to consent so this can never be a kiss. Instead, it’s more of a kiss of life in a very literal way.
Several long moments later – far longer than Jack had been hoping – Ianto gives a small gasp, a sharp intake of breath that burns his windpipe as his lungs demand fresh air, diaphragm contracting painfully in spasm, and his whole body crying out, having been starved of oxygen. Jack knows exactly how it feels having experienced it thousands of times before, but there’s nothing he can do to help Ianto other than quieten him. It won’t do either of them any good if his deranged robotic girlfriend hears them and returns to kill them again. Jack will survive it, but it’s unlikely Ianto will a second time.
Jack pulls back quickly from the kiss and brings a finger to his lips in the universal command to be silent. Ianto seems to understand. He doesn’t say anything. He looks up at him with wide and fearful eyes, frozen in the cradle of Jack’s arms, unmoving. He doesn’t move, not whilst the heavy mechanical footsteps echo from the Medical Bay, not when a jaunty ringtone abruptly rings from the same Bay, nor at the following commotion. Ianto is frozen.
But then they hear the cry of the cyberman, using the voice of Ianto’s dead lover. He’s up and out of the safety of Jack’s arms before he can stop him, not that there’s anything Jack could do to stop him. He’s exhausted.
Jack falls backwards to the ground, weak and alone. He can’t stop himself from using the limited energy he has left to curl up, bringing his knees up to his chest. He’s only partly aware of Ianto wading through the tidal pool towards the converted shell of the monster he still calls Lisa. Gwen and Owen are still down in the Medical Bay; he can hear their harsh whispers. At least they’re still alive. But he doubts Ianto is going down there to help them. He only moved when he heard the Cyberman scream in pain, not whilst his colleagues were fighting for their lives.
By the time Jack’s recovered enough to clamber back to his feet, Gwen is pushing a stumbling Ianto back up the stairs, Owen leading the way as they run towards their captain. The electricity that had burned through him once to kill him then again to revive him has gone, leaving him burnt and drained. But the Cyberman still lives and Jack still has his team to protect. In fact, his recent experience has just given him an idea...
The first time Ianto kisses Jack, Jack can’t help but wonder quite what’s going on.
Ianto had kept his promise, and it had nothing to do with kissing him. ‘One day, I’ll have the chance to save you and I’ll watch you suffer and die’ – Ianto had done exactly that. He’d watched on impassively as the creature dupped “The Saviour” had dragged Jack through the open portal just like he had promised to do only a few months ago.
The others who’d been sent through the portal before had been tricked, believing that they were going to be sent to a planet called Heaven, a place where they could leave their life old life behind and start again somewhere new where everything would be perfect. Jack knew no such place existed; the universe simply wasn’t that kind of place.
Before Ianto had instructed the creature to take him, Jack had removed the filters covering the portal and revealed the cold hard reality behind the smoke and mirrors. It was Hell. The barmaid selling her patrons for a bit of cash on the side had already known the truth. Ianto simply hadn’t cared. As far as he was concerned, being sent through the Rift and being sold into slavery was exactly what Jack deserved.
Or maybe it wasn’t. Ianto had come back for him, after all.
He’d freed him from the machine which he’d been strapped to, left alone to scream out his pain as it tortured him to supposedly find out his abilities. The electricity that had burned through his veins barely left a mark on his skin, but it was strong enough to send his heart into spasm. Sadly, it didn’t kill him quick enough for him not to feel the paralysis spreading through his body leaving him unable to breathe whilst feeling like his heart was about to explode from his chest. His resurrection, however, was quick if painful. He’d come back to life laid out on the filthy ground of the warehouse with Ianto hovering over him. His chest burned and his ribs hurt, but there had been a different pressure on his lips in that first fraction of a second as he gasped back to life. A kiss of life, from one Mr Ianto Jones.
Jack hadn’t kissed him back. He couldn’t stop his mouth from making a quip about it though. It was a defence mechanism learned over a hundred years and Ianto would have expected it from him anyway. But Jack knew it wasn’t a kiss. Ianto wouldn’t kiss him.
Yet barely thirty minutes later, the case having been wrapped up and Ianto deciding to stay rather than flee, Ianto had asked him to. ‘You could kiss me,’ he’d said in a small voice. It had wavered, uncertain, as he’d stared out the windscreen of the SUV and out into the dark streets. Not quite a question, but not quite a demand, and Jack can’t believe what he’s just heard. But then Ianto repeats himself. This time it’s definitely a question and there’s a hint of defiance in his voice as he looks at Jack. It could easily be a demand. Then, ‘only if you want to,’ he adds in that unsure voice as he looks away again.
Jack doesn’t know what to say.
For god’s sake, he just had to spell out that he’s Ianto’s friend, despite everything. And though by any recent account, Jack’s absolutely shit at reading Ianto, he’d seemed surprised by that admission as if it wasn’t already obvious. Jack shouldn’t have been surprised by that either considering Ianto had just sent him to his death.
Ianto hates him, hates that he murdered his girlfriend, hates that he didn’t save her, hates that he didn’t save him. And now he wants him to kiss him?
Ianto wouldn’t kiss him. Ianto won’t kiss him.
That thought is driven from his mind as Ianto’s mouth crashes into his, nose bumping roughly into his cheekbone and tongue clumsily trying to push past his lips. Jack barely has time to register how Ianto got so close. One hand is firmly cupping Jack’s jaw hard enough to bruise as he digs his fingers into his skin (no doubt feeling his pulse race), the other has latched onto the lapels of his coat and both are pulling Jack towards him, almost at full strength. Jack has to put his hands upon Ianto’s shoulders to brace himself against the attack, lest he goes toppling over the gear stick and straight into Ianto’s lap. But it’s not an attack. Ianto is kissing him. His lips are warm and chapped and demanding. His tongue has worked its way into his mouth.
Ianto is kissing him and Jack kisses him back.
The first time Jack initiates a kiss, they’re up on the catwalks in the Hub. Ianto is making Jack one last cup of coffee and hopefully one for himself too. It hasn’t been every night, hell, it hasn’t even been most nights – Torchwood hours are long and unpredictable, even more so recently – but frequently enough for it to become a theme. Ianto will make one more coffee for him as a reason for him to stay behind at the end of the day, not that he needs one. Jack guesses it’s just Ianto’s thing – apart from that first night, he’s never come straight out and said what he wants or maybe that’s just an early twenty-first-century thing.
Jack comes up behind him, wraps his arms around him and kisses his neck. Ianto jumps a mile. It’s a minor miracle that he doesn’t burn himself on the coffee machine. He swings around looking guilty, even more so as the klaxon on the cog door sounds, signalling Toshiko’s exit. She’s the last of them to leave, other than Ianto whom Jack thought had no intentions of leaving anytime soon. He might have just recked that though. He swears to himself not to kiss Ianto in public again as he works on persuading Ianto to stay for a while, if only for a drink.
The first time Jack kisses Ianto in front of the team, nobody reacts. Jack can only be glad about that considering he hadn’t intended to do it. Not right now, at least. But Ianto was pale and cold, propped up in a hospital bed. Jack had been helpless to do anything to save him, despite being the person who’d caused his current predicament. Not directly, of course, but his action’s the previous night had resulted in Ianto taking a tumble down the side of a Welsh mountain. He’d been run off the road, barely making it out of his car before it crashed through the barrier and plummeted to the ground where it exploded in a ball of flames. But Ianto’s last-minute escape hadn’t been ideal – he’d landed on a sheet of slate that had embedded itself just to the left of his lower spine.
Jack, meanwhile, was spending time in custody, charged with crimes that he had committed yet nevertheless could never admit to. Murder was never an easy charge to be let off on, especially when there’d been a string of violent deaths in less than 24 hours that all seemed to revolve around him, but he had Tosh on his side. He believed in her, and the rest of the team. He hadn’t meant for any of them to get hurt though, least of all Ianto, who’d gone looking for him after he’d not turned up to work the next morning.
He hadn’t known what had happened until he’d been released and received a call from Gwen telling him of Ianto’s accident which had been so serious that he’d been airlifted straight to the hospital for emergency surgery. Jack had been exhausted after a long night of work and several hours of interrogation by Cardiff’s finest, but he’d rushed straight to St Mary’s, only stopping for a bag of grapes on the way. He’d made sure to saunter as casually as he could manage into the room as if he hadn’t rushed all the way there as fast as he could. And after greeting his amazing, wonderful, fantastic team and giving them the rundown of the case they’d worked on to save him, he’d kissed Ianto.
It hadn’t been a proper kiss, just a quick brush of his lips to Ianto’s clammy forehead. It wasn’t anything that he hadn’t done to either of the girls when they’d been destressed or injured or, once or twice, just because he had been so darn proud of them. He’d even done the same to Owen, although that had only been during his early days of working for Torchwood and still grieving for Katie. It had only been done in private, too, to save embarrassment. Kisses weren’t consensual if one party was distressed by them.
Ianto didn’t seem particularly distressed, rather too doped up to care one way or another, still groggy from the anaesthesia. Jack couldn’t decide whether his ego should be offended by that or not.
But this felt different than a quick kiss to the forehead of his teammates. It wasn’t because of Ianto’s non-response, nor was it because they’d been shagging for the last month or so. He’d had plenty of relationships with colleagues in the past, the people he worked with, the people he worked for and, a long time ago, the people who worked for him. That wasn’t it. He didn’t know what made it feel different.
Perhaps it was because it was the first time in a long time that he’d actually identified something as a relationship, not just a casual fling. This certainly wasn’t what they had both agreed to on the night Ianto kissed him. But then again, they’d already broken that arrangement when Ianto had returned for a second time, despite promising that it was a one night only deal. However, Ianto had made it very clear that he wasn’t looking for a relationship. He was still grieving. He was still broken. And Jack couldn’t do anything else to jeopardise that. He’d hurt Ianto enough in the past. This, whatever this was, was just about mutual comfort. He supposed that was why Ianto had come to him after he’d killed Suzie again. They were both broken. They both needed comfort. It should’ve been nothing more, nothing less. But maybe it wasn’t.
At least the others hadn’t seemed to notice. Owen had screwed up his nose, though whether that was because of the kiss or the stats on Ianto’s chart that he was flipping through, Jack didn’t know. Gwen was still busy with her phone, her eyes fixed on the tiny screen. She was probably texting her boyfriend. Jack knows he should probably send her home soon, there isn’t a lot she could do here. She’d worked hard, as they all had, cleaning up his mess. They deserve a break. And when he catches Tosh’s eye, she just gives him a tired smile. It’s been a long day.
The first time Jack kisses Ianto in front of the team – properly, this time – it’s also the last time he’ll kiss Ianto for a long time. In fact, it’s the last time he’ll kiss anyone properly for over a year, but he doesn’t know that yet. That’s the problem with something being the last time, until it’s over, you never know it was the last.
For Jack, he’d already believed he’d kissed Ianto for the last time, on the night before he and Tosh had been sent back in time. Jack hadn’t kissed him when he’d come back. It wasn’t because he was angry that Ianto had disobeyed protocol again, nor because he was disappointed that he had shot Owen. It wasn’t – as Jack knew it looked with hindsight – that he’d been deeply in love with the original Captain Harkness, the man whose identity he’d stolen all those years ago. Rather, Jack had been grieving for the life he could have lived, should have lived.
Captain Harkness was a man who’d died protecting his men, fighting bravely to save them despite knowing he was facing his death. He’d have known that he was about to die as he faced down the enemy, he would have known what was about to happen to him, and he would have known there was nothing he could do about it. He could have run, could have been a coward and saved his own life, but he hadn’t. Captain Harkness had chosen to try and bring the others time, trusting that the people he was saving would win the next battle, win the next war. He’d chosen to fight for freedom and against hate. His heroic sacrifice would be remembered by those whose lives he saved, but that wasn’t why he had done it. He’d done it for his men.
That could have been him. That could have been Jack, the man who stole his name for a con but repaid his debt by fighting and dying for a cause that the Captain would have agreed with. That should have been him.
But it wasn’t.
And as he’d bid goodnight to Tosh, having chosen to stay with him late into the evening rather than rush to London for her family party, Jack had found himself remembering all those who’d died for him. There had been those who’d died before his first death in the far future, like his mum and his best friend back home, or his friends in the agency, not that he’d had many. And then there were those who died unknowing that they were fruitlessly trying to save an immortal man. Jack had quickly become consumed by those memories in particular. So many who died because of him, right back to his baby brother whom he’d never found despite long years of searching.
No one could help him with those memories, no one could possibly understand what it’s like to be him. Not Ianto, his part-time bed mate, nor Tosh who’d been thrown back in time with him and knew part of his secret, nor Gwen who knew of his immortality but not his long history. And as for Owen, the man who opened the Rift despite previous orders and a gunshot wound to his shoulder, he was too wrapped up in duty and heartbreak to deal with another’s. Jack was completely alone.
Jack had known opening the Rift would have tragic consequences, but even he hadn’t foreseen the events of the next day. There was the betrayal of his entire team, who’d he come to think each of as friends. He was murdered at the hands of Owen in front of them all, not just one bullet to the forehead, but two others to the chest after he was dead. And then they’d decided to open the Rift again, fully this time. It had released a gigantic death demon who’d been trapped waiting inside for his glorious return to bring havoc and destruction to the planet. So powerful, the beast could kill any living thing in its shadow. It didn’t even have to fight.
But maybe Jack had finally found his purpose, the reason he’d been saved all those years ago and thousands of years in the future. With Gwen’s help, he went to face down the monster. He kissed her goodbye, knowing that she would be the only one to let him go, to do what needed to be done, the only one who could stand back as he sacrificed himself for them. He’d been training her for this ever since he hired her. She’d already forgiven him, knowing what it was like to push people away out of fear which is exactly what he had done to the team before they betrayed him. It had been his fault.
It’d also helped that she had already gotten what she wanted. Her boyfriend was back from the dead and she knew that her boss would save them once more. He’d done it countless times before. He’d unwittingly trained her into seeing him as some kind of god, benevolent and cruel in equal measures, acting in ways that cannot be understood by mere mortals, and unstoppable, even by death itself. Perhaps it had been cruel to subject her to such brainwashing, but it was just about to save her life and everyone else’s on the planet.
Little did she know that he didn’t share her belief in him. He’d known he was about to die. But this time, he didn’t think he would come back.
So, he’d laid down his life at a wasteland on the outskirts of Cardiff, a small city on Sol-3 in the year 2008 CE on an overcast January day. He’d died saving the world. He’d died saving his team. And he stayed dead for three long days. He’d resurrected not with his usual gasp, but with a quiet sigh, awakening to the soft pressure of warm lips on his. Not Ianto’s, but Gwen’s, his loyal follower. She’d dressed him and walked him to be presented to his team. And there, he’d kissed Ianto. Ianto had kissed him back.
But then the Doctor had turned up and that was just the start of everything going wrong.
The first time Jack dreams of kissing Ianto, he’s half-delirious. He knows he’s not really kissing Ianto. Ianto is dead.
Ianto is dead. Gwen is dead. Toshiko is dead. Owen is dead. The Doctor is aged to the point of decrepitude.
He hasn’t seen Tish or Francene or Clive in weeks. He hopes they’re still alive. Their daughter, Martha, had escaped back to earth with Jack’s Vortex Manipulator. But that was several long months ago.
Several long months since he’d last kissed Ianto. Several long months since he’d run away with a half-assed plan of coming back. He wants to go back now. He wants to apologise. But he can’t. Ianto is dead.
So instead, he’ll content himself with kissing his ghost. He knows Ianto isn’t really here, but he’ll take any distraction he can have right now. He doesn’t want to remember that Ianto is dead.
Perhaps the Master has finally forgotten about him, leaving him to rot in the bowels of the ship where there’s no natural light and he can’t hear anything over the roar of the engines.
Perhaps everyone is dead and he’s the only living creature left in the universe. He hasn’t seen anyone for days. He’s alone, dying of thirst but at least he isn’t hungry anymore. He’s not even sure he could stomach one of Ianto’s coffee’s right now. It doesn’t matter, though. Ianto won’t be making him a coffee. He isn’t here. Ianto is dead
Perhaps it’s a good thing that Ianto isn’t here right now. His mouth is dry and his lips are cracked. Not great conditions for a secret kiss. But it doesn’t matter. Ianto is dead.
The only thing going in Jack’s favour right now is that it’s far too hot down here. He probably stinks; it’s been a while since he was last hosed down with freezing, cold, refreshing water. Perhaps it’s bad enough to wake the dead. Ianto is dead.
Ianto is dead.
The first time Ianto dreams of kissing Jack, he’s high in the sky halfway across the ocean in a plane on its way to the Himalayas. It’s been three long months since Jack left them (three months, one week and six days, though he long ago stopped counting the hours and minutes). Soon, Ianto will forget the dream, when he’s halfway up a mountain where he’ll find a larger-than-life Jack-in-the-box toy that’ll trigger an avalanche when it pops open. In one timeline, this will be the first of many things trying to kill him. In the other, it’s the first in a series of confusing events. Both timelines will result in his death, sooner or later.
The first time Ianto initiates a kiss with Jack since his return, he doesn’t mean to do it. That is to say, he had no intention of kissing him before his lips crashed into Jack’s.
Ianto still hasn’t forgiven him completely. Jack was gone for over three months, disappearing without a word. He didn’t say goodbye, nor did he say when he’d return. Ianto had torn the Hub apart looking for him, then for any clues to his whereabouts when it became clear that he’d left on some adventure without them – without him. And then Jack had returned as suddenly as he had vanished. He tries to act as if no time at all has passed, but it was obvious to Ianto that he’d come back different. Jack had changed in some way that Ianto still can’t quite get his head around. But then hadn’t they all changed in the months he’d been gone?
To make matters more confusing, Jack had asked Ianto out for a date on the night that he’d come back, though he’s yet to mention it since. He hasn’t mentioned much at all since. Not where he’s been nor what happened to him while he was away, just spouting the same cryptic riddles in answer to their questions, leaving them to try and decipher them to no avail. Eventually, even Gwen seems to have given up the hope of getting a straight answer from him. It’s about the only thing that’s stayed the same about Jack – apart from his attire, of course – although his answers have somehow become even more outlandish, not that Ianto would have ever believed that to be possible before. But then he wouldn’t have believed Jack to be some immortal from the future, either, yet he was.
But if anyone deserves some proper answers, it’s him. Before Jack left, Ianto had been sure that they’d been moving tentatively towards something that had the potential to be brilliant. And despite everything, he still wants that. He’s done tiptoeing around Jack whilst he flips from authoritarian boss to someone who seems almost insecure, not that Ianto can quite merge that idea with the man he’d thought he had known.
He also knows it’s time to stop pushing Jack away with wit and sarcasm. He’d known what he was getting into on the night that he propositioned Jack with a stopwatch of all things. Jack was different, different from anyone he’d ever known and Ianto was drawn to him for reasons he couldn’t explain with reason and logic. Jack had ordered him to kill the person he loved or be shot for disobeying orders. Jack had kissed him in front of the entire team then abandoned him without a thought. But Ianto still wanted to be with him. He still wants to be with him.
And tonight, Ianto’s feeling a bit braver than usual. The Hub is quiet. Everyone has gone home except for him and Jack. Ianto knows exactly what Jack’s doing, messing around with paperwork to give off the impression that he’s busy when he’s anything but. His mind is elsewhere, as is Ianto’s. But at least Jack’s here again, back where he belongs in the office that they’d had to renovate whilst he’d been away. His greatcoat casts a comforting shadow, slung over the coat stand in the corner of the room. And even if Jack’s brooding, just the presence of him back sat in his office is a comfort, one that Ianto isn’t taking for granted yet despite Jack’s assurances for the past three weeks. But tonight, most of all, Jack looks like he needs comfort, or at least a distraction. Ianto is happy and willing to provide both. He’s done so before.
As for Jack, the captain sat alone in his office, history is feeling far too close for comfort, and it’s got nothing to do with the bleed-throughs from the First World War. He knows tonight will be a long one with history bearing in and repeating itself once more. Tomorrow, Thomas Reginald Brockless – Tommy to both his friends and his enemies – will be sent back to The Great War, memories erased of his days spent at Torchwood. He’ll never return to the front line, but that’s no blessing. In three short weeks – or eighty long years ago, depending on your perspective – he’ll be sentenced to death on the orders of his own country. He’ll be shot for his cowardliness, one of just over three hundred men from Britain and the Commonwealth who were executed during the war. Despite his death by firing squad, he’ll be remembered as a hero, not a coward. History will recognise that he, like so many men, was affected by Shell Shock – or PTSD as it’s currently known – their minds damaged in a way that couldn’t be seen like the shrapnel wounds that covered many of those who survived and went home. And if all goes to plan tomorrow, Tommy Brockless will be the hero that also saved the twenty-first century. He’ll be a man who died for his country and the entire world twice, though history will only remember him for one of those things. That is the nature of Torchwood.
Jack can remember those days far too well sometimes, the smell and the mud and the blood and the noise. It’ll be worse if he doesn’t send Tommy back, Jack knows that, but he can’t quite believe that he’s now the commanding officer, the captain, who’s sending a young man to his death, sat in his office far away from the battle. He’s done it before – though not in the Wars of the twentieth century – and led Torchwood since the turn of the century. Not all of them had survived.
Ben Brown, Sebastian Vaughan, Suzie Costello.
He’d tried not to get too attached to them, at least that’s what he’d aimed to do. Getting attached to them was dangerous. Attachment got good people killed. And he’d known the Doctor would be returning soon. Jack had spent most of his life waiting for him. He didn’t have any plans of staying.
But Suzie’s death had changed that. She hadn’t been killed under his direct command, rather she’d committed suicide due to his negligence. He’d liked her well enough when she’d been alive, but he hadn’t cared enough to see what was going on, to see what Torchwood was driving her to. He was sure he could have prevented it, if only he had cared about her. He’d gone too far the other way. He’d decided to change, but it was slow work after seven years of apathy.
He didn’t retcon Gwen again and instead invited her to join his team after she witnessed his resurrection. Ianto was suspended for a month rather than executed and Jack forgave him for his betrayal. Toshiko was given compassionate leave rather than a suspension when she was manipulated by her alien girlfriend into betraying Torchwood and Jack forgave her, too. Even Owen was spared any penalties of shooting his commanding officer, Jack having decided that the consequences of his actions were punishment enough for the broken man, and once more, he forgave him. He forgave all of them for their actions that day.
But after his year-long absence, he’d chosen to return as soon as he was able. He’d chosen to come back for his team, because that’s who they were: his team. Gwen and Owen and Tosh and Ianto. Ianto, who was still with him, despite him sending them all home over an hour ago. Ianto, whom he’d asked out on a date and three hectic weeks have past and he’s yet to mention it again and it’s getting harder and harder to start that conversation. But loyal trusting Ianto still stays by his captain, replacing Gwen as his trusted follower, even though Jack doesn’t know what to say, what to do anymore.
It’s Ianto’s softly spoken questions, the type that can be easily deflected if Jack so chooses to do, that finally get him to open up, to get as close to admitting the truth as he is able. He doesn’t at first, although the thought briefly did cross his mind. He hasn’t been open and honest with anyone in a long, long time and it’s always ended badly. And whilst he gave up lying a long time ago too, he doesn’t always tell the truth. He’s lived a long life of over a hundred and seventy years and spent most of it on earth in the twentieth century. Mankind developed many deadly weapons in that period, but none so harmful as words. The truth for Jack is dangerous. Nothing can kill him permanently, but others weaponised his truth and use to hurt him in ways far more painful than any death.
After several lifetimes of practice, Jack finds it easy to brush off these sorts of prying comments. He automatically quipped out a question of his own, intended to deflect attention away from himself and embarrass the other. But Ianto wasn’t deterred by Jack’s defence mechanism response of forcing a joke into the conversation. Instead, he gives a simple, one-worded truthful answer to Jack’s question.
He sighed, knowing that Ianto deserved better than that. They’ve been dancing around each other ever since he returned, both unsure of where they stand with the other, but it’s time to stop. He knows Ianto deserves a truthful response in kind, but the problem is Jack doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t even know the answer to the simple question Ianto had asked.
Where does he belong? Lost in the past where he first found his purpose or in the far future where he was left alive when he should have been dead, the Doctor running from him because he knew he was wrong? Or just a place that was once his past but now in his distant future, the settlement where he was born, where his mother and father died and his brother was lost, the home he fought to protect. All of these places he’d left behind.
He’d had a home once. He’d had a mother and a father and a baby brother. But he’d left that home a long time ago. Had he ever belonged anywhere else? He’d thought he had at the time. Now he knew better. Where he belongs now is anyone’s guess. But for the time being, he’s chosen to be here, with Ianto, with his team. Defending the Earth, as a Time Lord had once said.
But ‘I know you get lonely,’ wasn’t even a question, just a quiet statement of fact. Jack could’ve ignored it again if he wanted to. He didn’t.
Instead, Jack looks up at him, perched on the edge of his desk, and answers the question Ianto hadn’t even asked. There was no home for him anymore. His parents were dead, as were his friends from Boeshane. His brother was still lost to him, even if John was telling the truth about having found him.
Jack looks away again, not at Ianto, but far away into his own memories. So much has happened to him since he left that dusty little planet behind, barely a teenager but desperate to escape and make a life for himself elsewhere. If he hadn’t had left his home planet, he’d have died there too. But hadn’t. He doesn’t regret leaving, because there’s one thing he does know.
‘I wouldn’t have changed that for the world.’
It’s this small phrase, this tiny admission, that catches Ianto off guard. Jack doesn’t talk, not like this. It’s the final confirmation that his Jack, the one he’d once shared his bed with growing frequency during those four months, was still there. Not only was he still there, but he was sharing something with him that he doubted Jack had shared with anyone (he can’t say ever, for who knows how old Jack truly is and how many lives he’d lived before he’d met him) for a long time.
Ianto can’t stop himself as he stares into his eyes, seeing behind the veil for the first time. This is man Ianto thought he might have been slowly falling in love with before Jack had deserted them, leaving him behind without a second thought. They’re both staring at each other in silence and Ianto’s holding his breath, fearing to move less it breaks the spell.
But he can’t hold back forever. It’s been three weeks and Ianto wants Jack back. He barely lasted a week after their first night together – a one night only offer – before he caved in and asked Jack for a repeat performance, shaking off his embarrassment with a quip about a stopwatch. Life is short and everyone deserves a moment or two of pleasure.
Ianto dives forward to kiss him. One hand goes directly to Jack’s shoulder then slides up his neck to his head to pull him in hard and fast. It’s past midnight yet Jack’s hair is still perfectly jelled in place. He relishes in the slight stiffness as his fingers run through the soft spikes; he knows it won’t look perfect by the time morning comes.
Jack takes a fraction of a second before he’s kissing him back, slower, softer, but no less desperately. His hands skirt over his back and shoulders, seemingly unsure of where to place them. It’s different. Ianto tries to match his pace but it’s difficult. He’s softer with his other hand, cradling the strong jaw that Ianto loves so much. Jack mirrors him, both hands coming to cup his face gently. He smiles into the kiss.
Kissing Jack isn’t like kissing anybody else Ianto has ever kissed, and not because he’s a man, nor, he thinks, because he’s a man from the future. He’s just Jack, and just maybe, one day, Ianto might fall in love with him. But not today. Especially not today if Jack doesn’t let him up for air.
No longer is he pulling Jack towards him, but he’s being pulled firmly towards Jack. Though the cradle of his hands is gentle, Ianto can’t free himself from them. If this goes on for any longer, Ianto’s going to find himself toppling off the desk and into Jack’s lap. Although, at this moment, it’s a toss-up between that and Ianto passing out from oxygen deprivation. It’s as if Jack’s afraid that if he lets Ianto go for even a second, he’ll disappear forever.
Ianto’s not stupid, nor is he blinded by love. He knows that one day soon. Jack will be sat here alone once more, having sent Ianto to his death. Ianto will die and Jack will live. There’s no changing that fact. Torchwood will kill him, sooner rather than later. But at the moment he’s more at risk of suffocation. Perhaps his earlier thought was wrong; kissing Jack was different from kissing anyone else because he was a man from the future with a far bigger lung capacity.
But then Jack – the bastard – is laughing. He’s still trying to kiss him despite seemingly equally breathless. Ianto finds himself laughing into the kiss too. He’s laughing and Jack’s laughing and maybe, just maybe, everything will be all right. It is at the moment.
They’ve got six hours until they need to report for duty and Ianto knows neither of them has a hope in hell of being able to sleep well tonight. He thinks that he still has that stopwatch somewhere. Maybe they can continue that list of theirs. That is if they ever stop kissing.
The first time Ianto kisses Jack when he comes home from work, it’s a strange experience because it’s not what Ianto does. It’s not the sort of thing that Jack does either. Maybe they would if they didn’t work with each other. But they do. They spend almost every waking hour with each other. Jack even spends a few nights a week at Ianto’s too and more often than not he’s still there when Ianto awakens the next morning. It’s not a conventional relationship by any means, but they’re Torchwood. They don’t do normal.
But Ken and Ifan do. That’s who he is now. Ifan, not Ianto. And Ifan welcomes his boyfriend home from work with a kiss whilst their neighbours look on. Ifan is a perfect househusband-to-be who stays at home in their perfect house in their perfect street in their perfect gated community whilst his perfect boyfriend Ken goes out to work at a department store.
They’re in a serious committed relationship and they love each other very much. They’re both perfectly ordinary normal people and they do the same normal routine every single day, just like everyone else. Each morning Ifan sends Ken off to work at his 9-to-5 job with a packed lunch and a smack on the bum. Each evening he greets him with a hug and a kiss. During the day he browses for new recipes to try and buys new things for their perfect home together. He keeps their house clean and neat and pulls out the weeds from their front garden by hand. The most excitement he gets during the long hours he’s alone is binge-watching another marathon of ‘Murder, She Wrote’ on Channel 5.
Every day is exactly the same. The days in suburbia soon become a week, which soon rolls over into two, then three. Ken and Ifan are perfectly happy. But Ianto is not.
This was not what he signed up for. Sure, everyone is perfectly lovely, if only he could ignore the absolute passive-aggressiveness of his neighbours, all wrapped up and carefully hidden under the disguise of political correctness. Ianto’s increasingly elaborate meals go missing at the weekly BBQs due to food allergies. His neighbours bring round cakes for them at unreasonable times, just to show how perfect their lives are. Snide comments are made about the state of the daffodils in the front garden, encouraging everyone to be exactly the same, right down to the white picket fence.
This is not the life Ianto ever wanted, not with Lisa, and certainly not with Jack. Ianto was Torchwood. He’d chosen to join this crazy world when Yvonne Hartman turned up on his doorstep all those years ago.
In fact, the only thing that Ianto could compare to life at Serenity Plaza was working at Torchwood Tower. Within a month, he’d been promoted to Yvonne’s Personal Assistant. He knew almost everyone and everything that was going on in the Tower. The only person who knew more was Yvonne herself. She was a people person who prided herself on her people skills. She’d known every single person’s name along with exactly who they were and what they did. She knew who was dating who, who had a crush on someone, and which people couldn’t stand each other. Ianto had watched her play god so many times. She’d rearrange whole departments if it suited her. Ianto had thought she was a bit of a romantic at heart really. Without her, Ianto would never have been where he was today. He would’ve never dated Lisa for a start.
But Ianto had liked Yvonne. He couldn’t stand his new neighbours. It was so strange the first time he kissed Jack, knowing that their next-door neighbours Bob and Mary were watching their every move. Everyone here was watching everyone, making sure no one stepped out of line. It was hell.
He wasn’t a public person, not anymore. The destruction of Canary Wharf and the carnage that had followed had changed that. But it wasn’t like he’d ever been very open about his emotions. Confiding in Lisa that he thought he was in love with her was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life so far, despite his work at Torchwood. And whilst they might have shown a few moments of affection to each other – a kiss or two here and there – Ianto had always been more comfortable in expressing himself in private.
Sometimes he wondered quite how he and Jack got together, how, despite everything, they’ve stayed together. Jack is loud and brash and everything Ianto is not. He could imagine Jack courting the woman he loved with a dozen roses just because he could, or those heart-shaped chocolate boxes with big declarations of ‘I Love You’ written on them. Ianto wasn’t like that. That wasn’t his thing.
But just because he didn’t do it, didn’t mean that he wasn’t having those feelings. He knew how dangerous they could be. He knew how far he had gone to save the woman he loved, and it had been too far. What he would do for the man he is starting to admit that he loved scares the living shit out of him.
The first time Ianto kisses Jack to identify himself – and isn’t it weird that it’s happened more than once? – Ianto is invisible. It’s also the first time that he kisses Jack in front of anyone from the team. Well, sort of, on account of him being, well, invisible. If he were to ask Jack – which he has no intention of doing – he’s sure that Jack would disagree. He would say that Ianto hadn’t kissed him in front of Owen, he had simply been kissed in front of Owen, which Owen has seen many, many, times before. Also, Jack had his back to Owen, so he wasn’t even aware that Jack was being kissed, much less being kissed by an invisible Ianto.
As far as Owen was concerned, he’d just witnessed the strangest thing he’d seen all month when a policeman was attacked by an invisible assailant. Either that, or he had a second job as a mime, which was rather unlikely considering the sounds he was making. Also, Torchwood’s latest groupie had been blamed for the incident and was carted off, saving him and Jack from any more unanswerable questions. Then, to top it all off, Jack’s manual wheelchair had started moving by itself, uphill and at considerable speed.
Ianto had rather enjoyed kicking ass and getting none of the consequences, which was the only current upside of being invisible. Once he’d pushed Jack’s wheelchair far enough away from the emergency services – too nosey for their own good, given Jack’s current state – he put on the brakes and reached out slowly to touch Jack’s neck, stroking it gently. He didn’t want to startle Jack any more than he had to. His leg was still severely injured, and any sudden announcement would probably make him jump. Also, he didn’t want to risk accidentally punching him, he had done (purposely) to the policeman just now. It was extremely disconcerting to not be able to see his own hand, but in the short time he’d been invisible he seemed to have come to terms with it quite quickly. Like Owen, who no longer had a sense of touch, Ianto had to rely solely on his muscle memory. It was just as well that he knew how to kiss Jack with his eyes closed, quite literally in this case.
He focused on what he could feel. Jack’s skin was warm under the palm of his hand, just as it always was. He could feel his pulse jump as he applied a bit more pressure. He lent in slowly, letting Jack feel his breath on his jaw, before closing his eyes and pressing his lips against his. It was easy for him to get lost in the moment, tongue parting Jack’s lips with practised ease and flicking over his teeth. He even did that thing with his tongue that he knew Jack loved. It takes a few seconds for Jack to gasp out his name, though no doubt he’d known as soon as his lips touched Ianto’s, and probably suspected it even before.
On reflection, perhaps it was better that Owen hadn’t seen him kiss Jack whilst invisible. God knows what they looked like, even if it did feel amazing. Although, according to Owen, it looked a bit like Jack was having a fit, not that that seemed to concern him much if his slow amble towards Jack’s wheelchair was any indication.
Ianto had enjoyed announcing his presence to Owen too, though obviously not through a kiss. His disembodied voice was enough to make him jump.
He could have simply told Jack too, rather than kissing him (unlike the second time he has to identify through a kiss, having woken up next to Jack in a body that was not his own), but he hadn’t. they were supposed to be on a date, goddammit, not hunting monsters.
Ianto had finally worked up the courage to ask him out on a proper date, seeing as they’d never made their dinner and a movie Jack had proposed six months ago on the night he’d returned from the Doctor. Not for lack of trying on either of their parts, mind. Jack was the head of Torchwood, and on top of that, immortal. For him, there was always work to be done.
Ianto should’ve been used to it by now, should have accepted it, but no, he’d insisted that they leave their guns in the car. This was supposed to be a nice relaxing trip to the zoo, as suggested by Gwen. It was a weekend. Tosh and Owen were manning the Hub. Gwen was on call, but otherwise planning on going wedding shopping with her maid of honour. And Ianto and Jack supposedly had the day off. Instead of pottering around his flat as they usually did on the rare occasion that they both had time off together, he’d asked Jack out on a date. A proper date, one where dinner wouldn’t be interrupted by Weevils and one where they’d actually make it to their destination without a sudden Rift Alert pulling them away at the last minute.
If they had taken their guns, perhaps he wouldn’t be invisible right now and Jack wouldn’t have been killed and left severely injured (and only when applied to one Captain Jack Harkness does that sentence make grammatical sense). But it was supposed to be a date, an escape into a life neither of them lived anymore, but one they could still experience if only they made the effort. And maybe Jack was right sometimes, maybe Ianto had let Torchwood take over his life, but then so had Jack. But Jack had been so pleased at playing house for a bit, and deep down Ianto had enjoyed aspects of it too, much as he hates to admit it. So, whilst living that fake perfect life wasn’t for them, it didn’t mean that they couldn’t do other things together. Ianto had taken the initiative and asked Jack on a perfectly normal date.
They were going to hold hands and share random facts about animals and eat overpriced ice cream.
And all Ianto could do was make the most of it while it lasted before real life and Torchwood came crashing back. So, with that thought in mind, he'd kissed Jack.
The first time Ianto kisses Jack in front of the team – fully visible this time – there isn’t much of a team left. Tosh and Owen are dead, for the second time in Owen’s case. All that is left of Torchwood Three are the three of them. Him, Jack, and Gwen. Ianto had once worked in a Tower block in the centre of London with over eight hundred employees. He’d known people on every floor, in every department. Now all that was left of Torchwood was this underground cavern in a city that had almost been destroyed and the three of them. They had been damaged too, almost to the point of destruction. But like Cardiff, they lived to fight another day, just the three of them.
So maybe, the kiss should be counted as just one of the other times he’d kissed Jack in front of Gwen. She’d seen them kiss before, walked in on them before. It wasn’t anything new.
And it wasn’t like the team, when they’d been five instead of three, hadn’t known that they were together. Owen had caught them snogging on more than one occasion, as had Tosh. It’s just that his and Jack’s relationship is private, as undefined as it is. They just didn’t go around announcing it, that was all.
Their relationship had always been in the background, secondary to Torchwood, as all things were. Jack couldn’t afford to be distracted by his feelings and neither could Ianto if he wanted to stay alive. But there were some exceptions. Whenever the situation allowed, which was most times due to the allowances the rest of the team made, Ianto made sure to stay with Jack after his death until he gasped back to life. If that was not an option, or if Jack had been killed whilst he was away, Ianto always made sure to find him afterwards to check on him. Often it was just a quick hug, but if the others weren’t around, he’d sneak a quick kiss. He needed those brief moments to remind himself that Jack had come back to him alive. Sometimes he thought that Jack needed them too, the comfort that everyone was safe and well for the time being.
Ianto loved Jack, though he doubted Jack loved him in return. He could deal with that. He’d known that Jack wasn’t capable of that sort of relationship with him before they’d fallen in bed together for the first time. Jack just didn’t experience emotions like the rest of them; he was immortal, something had to give. Jack could very much be a kid in a sweet shop, living in the moment and switching from one thing to another in a blink of an eye. But at the moment, he wasn’t experiencing the joy of finding a new type of sweet. Tosh and Owen were dead. Two of his friends were dead. He hadn’t been in love with either of them, but he had cared for them deeply. And although he was trying to hide it, it was obvious that he was finding it hard to cope.
If he ever truly fell in love, the kind of love Ianto felt for him, it would destroy him. Jack was destined to outlive them all. That’s just the way it was.
Ianto had already seen how far Jack was willing to go to save his friends on the night that Owen died for the first time. He’d been willing to do anything to save Owen, by any means possible, and it had almost destroyed the world they’d sworn to protect. But Jack had taken it in his stride, shrugged it off and moved on. He had saved Owen at the cost of twelve other people. He lived in the moment. Owen had been his friend. Ianto dared to think what Jack might do to save his lover.
Now, Owen is dead again. So is Tosh. Ianto hadn’t been able to do anything to save them. Neither had Jack. They were gone forever.
But Torchwood moves on without them. Ianto doesn’t automatically reach for Tosh’s mug when he makes coffee anymore and he stopped reaching for Owen’s long ago. Gwen sits at her desk by Jack’s office each morning, no longer freezing in the doorway, caught between the desk that used to be Suzie’s and the desk that used to be Owen’s. Jack has settled too, no longer swinging from one extreme to the other. He’s still overprotective of them, but now he lets them in, lets them help him when he’s feeling lost. Gwen still stumbles over her words when she asks for help with her computer, but she asks Ianto with a smile that grows stronger each time turns to him. And Ianto still goes quiet suddenly when he makes a joke that only Owen would’ve laughed at, but he laughs when Jack makes a quip in return, trying to make up for the quietness that’s starting to feel less awkward with each passing day. Everything’s changed but it’s starting to feel normal again. This is it; this is Torchwood.
And late one evening, after a quiet day, Ianto kisses Jack in front of Gwen, just because he can.
The last time Jack kisses Ianto, Ianto is dying. Jack is dying too, but that doesn’t matter right now. His body’s already fighting the virus that the 456 have released. He can feel the tingle of energy running just below his skin, the fogginess in his brain, and the nausea in the pit of his stomach. That’s just the way his body works now. It’ll fight and it’ll fight, and it’ll fight until he finally gets immunity to the virus. It probably won’t kill him, but the fight might. Every single bit of energy that’s running through him, forcing him to live whatever the cost, will be consumed as it fights the virus. Sometimes, when it’s finally achieved its goal, there’s nothing left to keep him alive any longer. His body will give up, but not for long. The energy will be replenished, and he’ll be alive once more, now immune to the virus. He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again. That’s not the problem.
It’s killing Ianto. Killing him much faster than it’s killing Jack because that’s probably what it was designed to do: kill humans quickly. It’s a deadly virus that’s been released by monsters, monsters who released it because Jack made them. He declared war. The captain who’d made himself the face of the Human Race and he’d declared a war that his soldiers couldn’t even begin to fight.
There’s no escape. And they won’t take it back. They won’t release the antidote no matter how much he pleas. Because they’re monsters. Monsters who use human children as a drug supply. Human children that are still alive. Human children that another monster, another alien to this planet, gifted to them over sixty years ago. The same monster who's taunting threats have directly caused the deadly virus to be released into a building full of civilians. Civilians with nowhere to go. There’s no escape. There’s nowhere to run. People are dying because of him. Innocent people are paying for his crimes. Innocent people like Ianto.
Ianto is dying. Ianto is dying. Ianto is dying and it’s all his fault.
Ianto’s fallen to the ground, his legs no longer able to support the soon-to-be-dead weight of his body. Jack’s cradling him in his arms, but it’s no use. Ianto is dying. Jack promises he won’t forget him. He won’t have to even try. He just needs to kiss him. Harness all that energy that’s burning inside him and kiss him. Force that energy into his body and heal him. He’s done it before. He can do it again. He can save him. He can save his lover who’s only now admitted he’s still too young and stupid in love. Jack just needs to keep him alive long enough for his body to create the antidote which he’ll then be able to transfer to Ianto through a kiss. A kiss of life. Simple bodily fluids disguised as magic.
It’s just a question of time.
But Jack’s energy isn’t enough. He can’t keep forcing it. He can feel it burning weaker and weaker. What once was a fire is barely a flicker of embers in dark ash. Maybe this time there’s not enough energy left in him. Maybe he’s finally used up his supply, just as Ianto had feared. Maybe this time he won’t come back.
But he’s not dead yet. The little energy he has left is fighting a losing battle. It’s still trying to heal him, still trying to find the antidote. But there isn’t enough to heal Ianto. There isn’t enough to heal himself.
Ianto has died. And Jack is dying.
The last time Jack has the chance to kiss Ianto, he doesn’t. Instead, he chooses to walk away.
The first time Jack kissed him, the non-kiss that brought him back to life, he’d felt Ianto’s cold skin under his lips. He’d supported the dead weight of his slack lifeless body in his arms. And then he’d felt him gasp as he returned to life.
This time, he doesn’t kiss Ianto when he’s dead, laid out on the floor of a school gymnasium on a red sheet of plastic with a little yellow card indicating he’s the fourteenth body recovered from floor thirteen of Thames House. Jack had been number thirteen. And he doesn’t want to feel cool skin under his lips again. He doesn’t want to remember the last time he kissed Ianto’s lifeless body.
It won’t be like the last time anyway. Before, his lips were just cool, now they would be dead cold. Before, his body had been lifeless and slack. Now it will be lifeless and stiff. That’s why they’d been placed on a plastic sheet. They’ve been dead for hours.
Even without touching the dead body, Ianto’s dead body, it’s all Jack can feel. He doesn’t need to touch him to know the truth.
Ianto’s gone. He’s dead.
He’s stuck flailing in the darkness that Jack’s just been dragged from. And there’s nothing Jack can do to save him. Not this time. It’s been too long.
Life isn’t a fairytale. True loves kiss is not going to bring Ianto back to him. There’s no such thing as happy endings. He’s lived long enough to know that.
Ianto is dead. Ianto is dead. Ianto is dead, and Jack thinks a bit of him might have finally died too.
(Jack will kiss Ianto again, but it will be many years into his personal future and always in Ianto’s past. Ianto’s future has stopped, just like the stopwatch they had broken on the night Ianto had used it as an unusual way to proposition Jack. Ianto never gets to kiss Jack again, nor will he be kissed by him, even at ‘The House of the Dead’ where the memories of the past are brought back to life. There's one final hug when Ianto greets Jack at the door and one last confession that never should have been left until his deathbed to be spoken, but no kiss.)
The last time Ianto Jones is remembered, he’s remembered being kissed by an immortal man called Captain Jack Harkness. It will be several thousand lights years away and a few billion years after the last time he was kissed. The being who will remember them won’t be either Ianto Jones or Captain Jack Harkness. Neither of these men will have existed for a very long time. The being that will remember them won’t even be human.
However, the long-lived (but not immortal) being will remember what it was like to be human, just about. He’ll feel the tug of sensations lost long ago, dreaming of what it’s like to have a body, to have hands to touch and arms to hold someone close to you, just as he’ll dream of the taste of fresh air and the feeling of the touch of another. And he’ll know what it’s like to lose someone close to you, someone whose loss makes you feel like you can’t go on.
He’ll have lost almost everyone over his long life. Long ago he’ll have mourned the loss of his entire species, his memories both sad and filled with joy. And although Boekind will be dead, Humankind will survive. It’ll live on, right to the end of the universe itself. The Face of Boe will know this as it was once witnessed by one Captain Jack Harkness.
He will no longer be that man. Indeed, he will no longer be a man at all. But that immortal man will be long dead. Yet in the Face of Boe’s dreams and memories, that man, his life, and the people he loved, live on. Not always as faces, not always as names – those will have faded over millennia no matter how hard he tries to hold on to them – but as the legacy they left.
But one man will be vibrant in these memories and dreams, bursting with energy and life, having been found once more after being hidden for so long.
You could say that the universe is like a giant ocean. It’s a metaphor a certain Time Lord might use before deciding halfway through their explanation that the universe is not like an ocean after all. The Face of Boe knows better than that, the Time Lord is an infant, still learning to walk and causing trouble wherever they go in comparison to him. The Face of Boe is the oldest living creature in the universe and some say the wisest. He knows that the universe is indeed like an ocean. Everything moves in waves, especially energy. Life grows and swells, peaks then falls. Things get pulled under and then float to the surface again. Nothing is lost forever, merely waiting for its time to be found again. History ripples out, repeating itself over and over again and will tell its story to anyone who will listen for long enough. What was once was the past is soon to be the future and is now the present. There’s nothing you can do about it, no matter how hard you might try to stop it. For that’s all the universe is, atoms and energy charged with half-remembered stories and memories of the past. The Face of Boe knows that there’s no way of stopping the tale that is being played out in creation’s biggest storybook, you can only turn the page.
A man who died because of an alien virus on Earth will be re-remembered because of a manmade virus on New Earth. Ianto Jones will be remembered as the first man to love Captain Jack Harkness, truly and completely. There had been other firsts before him, such as the first to fall in love with a young mortal Jax, or his first love of someone from another planet he’d met as a soldier fighting to protect his home. There was the first being of another species who fell in love with the Time-Agent-to-be Javic despite his cocky attitude, and the first love of a time traveller who bounced around his timeline. There were the first people that convinced a disillusioned con man to change his ways and so many more before and after Ianto Jones was dead and gone.
But Ianto Jones will shine brightly because he was the first man to love an immortal Captain Jack Harkness. Ianto Jones had loved him not because of his immortality, nor despite it. He simply loved him, truly and deeply because he was just Jack. With that love came forgiveness and acceptance, something the immortal had yet to receive. And in turn, Captain Jack Harkness had loved him just as much.
With the remembrance of Ianto Jones, others will follow. Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato. They had been Captain Jack Harkness’s team, the ones he came back for. They were the first people he’d ever come back for. Little mortal Jax had no one left to come back for, Time Agent Javic had learned to keep people at a distance, shutting himself off to protect himself, and by the time he was the conman captain, he had nothing to lose. But like Ianto Jones, Captain Jack Harkness had found acceptance in Torchwood, a small family of his own who loved him and mostly forgave him for his mistakes.
Torchwood Three will bring back memories of a life lived back on Old Earth. Not every memory will be pleasant. Those whom Captain Jack Harkness failed cannot be pushed aside. Suzie Costello, Alex Hopkins, Lucia Moretti. And there were others who’d joined Torchwood as well. Rex Matheson and Esther Drummond, then Mr Colchester, Tyler Steele, Orr, and Ng.
So many before and so many after, but not all will be remembered at once. The Face of Boe’s head may be large, but even it will be too small to house the stories of several million lives once lived.
But Ianto Jones will be remembered, along with the rest of Captain Jack Harkness’s little Torchwood team, tucked away under a strange city called Cardiff. With them, he was never alone.